


supernova

by trickydoll



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Drabble, Fluff, M/M, paranoid dan, sorta - Freeform, space boy phil, this is just me getting some stuff out of my mind really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:05:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4881403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trickydoll/pseuds/trickydoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan nods, “I don’t like space.”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	supernova

**Author's Note:**

> hi i cant sleep cause im thinking about space...i really hate it. its fascinating, extremely so, but im really scared of it and i started to think too hard about it and i scared myself...so i wrote this. its bad so dont read into it too much, its just a drabble to get my thoughts out.  
> xoxo

“I don’t like space.”

Said a young Dan Howell, watching as a the boy across from him messily colored the stars on his coloring sheet with a stubby crayon.

“Why not?” The boy asked, never breaking concentration from the paper as he fished a purple crayon from the tub between them, scribbling the sticky color over the blank planet surrounded by the generic star shapes. When silence followed followed the question, the boy, one Phil Lester, placed his crayon down and looked up at Dan, who was staring intently at his own coloring sheet.

It was the same as Phil’s-- a planet and star filled galaxy, except his lacked the colour that Phil’s had. “I don’t know,” Dan finally said, looking up with a bit of a pout. He placed the paper back onto the pile that was next to the crayon tub, instead taking one of a cartoon dog. He grabbed a red and began to neatly colour in the animal’s collar.

“Space is pretty. It’s cool.” Phil said, shoving his page aside for now. “My mummy and I look up at the sky every night and my dad tells me lots about the stars and the moon and even Earth, where we live right now.” Dan shakes his head, replacing his red for a brown.

“We live in England,” He states matter-of-factly, going back to coloring inside the lines of his dog. Phil huffs with a roll of his eyes.

“I mean- like- space wise! Our planet!” He points to the planet he’d coloured purple on his colouring sheet. “Like here. Except not purple.”

Dan nods, “I don’t like space.”

  
“Why not?”  
  
“I don’t know.”

\--

“They make up the big and little dipper. It’s neat that stars can make pictures, have stories.” Phil Lester, year seven, explained, eyes darting around the night sky. He sighed dreamily, looking over at his best friend who sat next to him on the roof of his home. He frowned at the bored, almost perplexed, look on Dan’s face. “When I ramble you can tell me to stop, you know?”

“It- It’s not that I don’t like hearing what you have to say. You’re super smart, y’know?” Dan looked up and at the black-haired boy, wringing his hands together worriedly. Phil nodded, smiling shyly at the compliment. Dan continued, “I just… I just don’t like space.” He turned away from Phil’s disheartened expression and began to climb off the roof and back into Phil’s room. There were books scattered across the floor from before he’d shown up. They were books on Astronomy, on Earth Science-- things Dan didn’t particularly care for. He flopped down at Phil’s desk, looking down at the doodle of the solar system encased in the galaxy, labels scattered across it. Honestly, Phil was such a nerd.

Phil unceremoniously clambered back into his room through the window, beginning to pick up the books off the floor and place them on the book shelf. Once he deemed them tidy enough, he dragged a bean bag chair towards the open window. He sunk down into it, leaning back and staring out at the moon. “It’s almost a full moon.”

Dan spun around the desk chair, facing Phil, the moonlight spilling across his pale features and twinkling in his eyes like the stars the boy loved so much he could probably tell you every fact there is to know about them. “Dan, why don’t you like space?”

“I don’t know, Phil.”

\--

“I thought year ten was hard, but now I leave school everyday with a headache.” Fifteen year old Dan whined, “I just don’t grasp the material very well. It pisses me off, really.”

Next to him, Phil giggled, gripping onto the straps of his backpack as the two walked home together. “You’re just a poor, unfortunate soul who got stuck with the one Maths teacher in school that gives homework _every night._ ” Dan groaned loudly, his bag suddenly seeming heavier on his shoulder. He pouted, their walk drifting off into silence for almost the rest of the walk.

Phil spoke up first, “There’s a meteor shower tonight. Do you wanna come watch at my house?” He chirped, jogging ahead a bit so he could round Dan off, standing in front of the boy to make him stop. He smiled cutely, rocking back and forth on his heels. Dan’s frown increased and Phil’s grin wavered. “I’m guessing not.”

“I have a lot of homework.” He said, and it wasn’t a lie, but it was Friday, and he could finish all that he had this weekend _easy_ whether he went to Phil’s or not. He guessed Phil had caught on to the semi-lie with the look in his eye. Dan looked down at his feet. “I’m sorry. I’ll see you Monday.” He side stepped Phil, beginning to trudge towards his house.

“Is this about your hatred for space, Dan?”

He didn’t answer, but it was.

\--

“We’re almost done with school, then we’ll be going to Uni.” Phil said suddenly one day, making Dan look up from his revision. His lips pressed into a flat line and he nodded curtly, going back to his notes. Phil scooted his chair closer to Dan’s desk. “Have you thought about where you want to go? What you wanna do?” Dan shook his head with the same brevity, baring his pencil down on his notebook harder than necessary. “Dan, you know we-” The pencil suddenly snapped and Dan near-screamed in frustration. Phil quitened.

The brunette grabbed his tiny hand-held pencil sharpener, jamming the writing utensil into it and twisting it back to a point. He tossed the plastic contraption next to him on the desk and continued writing again, an awkward and thick tension in the air. Phil sighed, “Sorry.” He spun around, looking out the window. “If a star is massive enough, after it goes supernova it can actually turn into a massive, gravity and light eating black hole.”

Dan’s eyes widened and he looked at Phil, his hands shaking, “Shut up.”

“A black hole’s gravitational field is so strong that even light cannot escape it-”

Dan threw his notebook at Phil, clamping his hands over his ears, “Stop, stop, stop! I don’t give a shit about your stupid space facts! I hate space! Get out or shut the fuck up!”

Phil shut up.

\--

“My mum brought by more boxes today,” Phil called to his new flatmate and long time best friend, Dan, carrying one of the brown boxes full of stuff from his old room into their slightly barren lounge.

“Just set it in the corner for a minute and I’ll go through it with you after I’ve finished unboxing my bedroom stuff,” Dan replied loudly from his room and Phil heard him ripping tape off another cardboard box. He smiled and sat down, opening one of the boxes his mum had neatly labeled as _keep_ \-- probably so _she_  knew not to throw it away-- or maybe she actually wanted Phil to keep it, no matter how crappy it seemed to him. He hummed, opening it up and looking down into it’s contents. “Ah,” He sighed, reaching into it and pulling out stack after stack of books. They were everything ranging from kid’s books to university level novels. They were all about things like _general space, stars, constellations,_  etc. He opened a particularly thick one on stars and supernovas, reading over the familiar content, pulling sticky notes he’d left in the book out and placing them in a pile next to him.

Before he knew it, he was surrounded by the books, engrossed in their content and the notes his younger self from different ages had left inside. They were quite intelligent and well thought-out notes. He’d be sure to save them all. Along with the books. It was still fascinating to him. “Okay, I’m-” Dan’s voice started and stopped when he saw the scattered mess. “Oh. You already started.” He shuffled over to Phil, looking around at all the books.

“Your mum brought your old space stuff, huh?” He said, pulling out a poster of the constellations, eying over it once before rolling it back up and placing it into the box again. Phil nodded, closing the book after marking the page with a fluorescent yellow sticky note. He placed the book aside in one of the many piles, eyes darting to the rather large window in their longue.

“It still means a lot to me.”

“Space?”

“Yeah. Stars, planets, galaxies, universes. The whole shebang.”

Dan nodded, pulling his knees to his chest. The sun had long since set, a lamp crappily set up on the lounge floor being the only lighting currently available as they were too lazy to turn on the main light right now. Stars we’re barely visible, but still dotting the night sky, and the moon shone brightly, painting a cream color across the floor of their new apartment. “And you...do you still hate space?”

“Yeah. Stars, planets, galaxies, universes. The whole shebang.” Dan mimicked. Phil laughed dryly.

“Why?” He asked, expecting to get the usual answer of “I don’t know” and then shut his mouth before he pissed Dan off. But this time, Dan sighed, and turned to Phil.

“It’s scary. It scares me. There’s so much happening up there that we don’t know about; there are constant changes and movements in space that happen everyday and we are ignorant to them. There’s millions of miles that are untouched by light, too far off for a man to get to in his lifetime, too complex for us to build something to get to. There’s too much that’s- that’s unknown.” Dan breathes shakily. “I don’t like it.”

“Dan,” Phil whispers, his gaze darting all over his best friend’s fearful expression. “There is a lot that’s unknown. But that’s what makes space...beautiful. The stars, the colours, the things we do and don’t know. It’s packed with so much knowledge-- think of it like that. Rather than the unknown, it’s- it’s things to learn. We’re just waiting. Like reading a book and turning the page, getting to a new chapter. There’s so much to uncover in this story.” He gently takes the boy’s trembling hand, “It’s amazing. There’s so much you can think about. It works your mind. It’s complex and- and-” Phil loses the ability to think of any other way to explain the thing he’d been passionate about almost all his life and sighs. He repeats, “It’s beautiful.”

“It- It changes so much.”

“What’s wrong with change?”

“It’s scary. I don’t like change.”

“Sometimes, change is good.” Phil mumbled, suddenly feeling the mood change. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to his best friend’s.

“...I suppose.” Dan muttered back before lips gently met his own.

_2:36 a.m., September 27th, Dan Howell fell in love with space and Phil Lester._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> leave me a comment telling me what you think. x  
> (this was also fun to write and i have more ideas. i may do a few more space one shots later.)


End file.
